Austin - 9 months

I no talk so smart anymore

It's true. The majority of my conversations take place with my two-year-old and my brain is slowly atrophying. So I need something that will exercise my brain a bit more. Anyone have any suggestions of some really great podcasts or books (preferably podcasts, though)? My topics of interest include; economics, politics, US history, language/linguistics....and pretty much anything presented in such a way that it won't put me to sleep.

Family Pictures

If you want to see how a photographer fits 40 people into a nice looking family picture, check out this site.

http://www.dbportraits.com/

He did a great job. I'm sure I could find his contact info if any of you are interested in some family pictures!

Oops

I broke our camera. I opened the cupboard above our fridge (you know, the one with nothing in it) and it pushed our camera off the top of the fridge all the way down to the floor. Now it doesn't work. That's ok though, it was our "disposable" camera. Meaning, that one didn't cost as much as my Canon Rebel, so we could take it water skiing with us, and if it broke it would be ok. Well, it's not ok. We didn't get any pictures from the family reunion. But I guess that's one of the reasons why there are 9 kids in Rusty's family. So one of them could take the pictures!

This one is probably one of my favorites. It's of Rusty's parents and all of their kids, they're all pointing to their missions. Now someone needs to send me the picture of LaRene and Ginger pointing to the brick wall.

Aaron, the youngest T*** (the one in the middle) just got his mission call to Jacksonville, Florida! He leaves next month. Good luck Aaron! They're feisty down in Jacksonville. ;)

I guess it doesn't scare me afterall.

Not only did I end up eating at Hogi Yogi on 9th, but Kate came, too! So I did get to see someone from BBC. Mostly I posted that Provo comment to be a total butt.

Provo scares me

I'm going to Utah tomorrow. I'll be in Provo for part of that time (a very small chunk). I plan on eating at Hogi Yogi. Probably on 9th because that's where I used to work. Anyways, I'm terrified of seeing someone from BBC. If you don't know what that acronym stands for, I beg of you not to learn it!

Well, we've unpacked our Wii

Adam and Michelle (and kids) stopped by on their way to Utah to check out our new place. We thought we'd introduce them to the Wii. This is Ashley and Ashlyn (cousins) boxing it out.

I was going to write some more...but my poor husband has resorted to looking up Brak clips on YouTube.

Moving Day

We left Hawaii with 6 bags, came to Boise with 2 car loads, and now we've left Boise with a HUGE 24-foot Uhaul (plus several carloads). How did that happen?

We had plenty of help with the move. Two brothers, two brother-in-laws, a papa, a nanee to watch the kids, and 2 nephews. That left an extra person to stand around lazily taking pictures. I took that job.

Of course, now the real work begins....

Party Time

We put the kids to bed early the other night and within 10 minutes we heard laughter and jumping. Yup, Ashlyn had crawled into Austin's crib and they were having a party. I'm so glad they get along well.

Later that night, Rusty went to go check on Ashlyn and couldn't find her anywhere. He looked all over the house and started panicking. He finally found her sound asleep under Austin's crib. He put her back into her own bed. The next morning, we found her under his crib again.

In honor of Friday the 13th

In light of my recent complaints about word verification, Stacey sent me a link to this blog entry:

Lucifer Afoot? The True Meaning of Word Verification "Words":

An intrepid duo of Christian bloggers claim they know what is truly afoot in the word verification "words" found in most Blogger and Haloscan comment boxes: the words, carefully decoded, are the work of the devil.

Both Blogger and Haloscan claim that the word verification "words" were created to prevent a kind of bulk hijacking of comments boxes, making the boxes cleaner for those who truly intend to respond to a blog post. This reasonable mutable good is apparently a cover-up for an elaborate attempt of the Prince of Darkness to infiltrate the opinionated minds of bloggers worldwide.

A blogger who simply wants to be known as "John Doe" makes the argument this way: "Have you ever noticed those words rarely have vowels? It's always something like drtjuvm or peqpnmv or gtnkdqp. Vowels, as all choral aficianados know, are the heart of music. Choruses rise on the vowel--ooooooo, or aaaaaahhhh, etc., because they are beautiful sounds. No one rises on a q or r or x; they're just ugly. Building on Socrates, beauty is the good, and the good is the true, therefore the ugly is evil. Those 'words', whatever they mean, are clearly evil.

"Doe continued, "So I began to play with various decoders I found on the internet, and it became obvious that the 'words' were not as innocent as they appeared. My first clue was when applying a simple numerical value for each letter--a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.--and 6.66% of the words kept adding up to 666. Another church friend of mine and fellow blogger began trying to speak them out loud, but backward, with a few vowels thrown in to make sense of them, and the first five words that popped up in a row were 'Dervish satanic glyphics embraces moronic.'" It's a riddle I don't want to touch. I'm just out here to warn people.

On a more personal note, I have read some of the word verification codes to the music of Dark Side of the Moon and the way it goes together is uncanny!

New Goal

Make my blog cool enough to get some comment spam.

Obama finally decides to wear a US flag lapel pin.

This is me whining and begging!

Who gets comment spam??

No one! So pleeeease turn off your comment verification. Go to SETTINGS and click on the COMMENTS tab. Where it says "Show Word Verification for Comments?" please check "No". I promise not to comment spam you if you turn it off.

No I take that back, I fully plan on comment spamming some of you.

Just waiting

We closed! We're just waiting for the keys to our place now, and as soon as we get them I'm off to start unpacking things.

Now here's a little plug for any of you in the Boise area. If you're looking for a real estate agent or a mortgage lender go through Sherri Merkley (Team One Services) and Brent Kotter (Oakhill Mortage). They've both bent over backwards for us and have gone way beyond what I expected from anyone.

The Countdown is On!

We close today!! Well, we have had a few issues come up, so hopefully we close today. First off, our ING account is not linked to our bank account, so we're trying to do some last minute stuff to try and transfer the money we'll need to pay for closing costs and stuff. The problem though, is that ING doesn't do anything last minute.

Then there's the issue of a broken vent and some chips in the upstairs bath/shower. We went to the house on Saturday and saw that they still haven't been fixed, so we told them to not plan on having us sign if the house wasn't perfect. Anyways, I hope they don't try and call that bluff.

Official move-in day is Saturday. We have family headed to Park City that weekend for a family reunion so we'll have plenty of help with the move. That means Tom and Betsy are off the hook. :) It also means that once we move in we have to spend the first week in our new home in another state.

There are two things that I am absolutely ecstatic about having our own home. One is pictured above. The drinking thingee on the fridge!! I love water!! Ice cold with lots of crushed ice. I hate warm water. If I was trapped out in a dessert with lots and lots of warm water I would die of thirst because I absolutely abhor warm water. Our fridges have always been filled completely with bottles of water so I can have cold water at my disposal.

The other thing is a slip n slide. The first major home purchase we're going to make is a suped up, pimped out slip n slide. Well, that is if such a thing exists...

It's amazing!

Blogger has this new feature called Blog Lists (you can find it by going to Layout and then add a new page element), anways, you list your friends blogs and it sorts them according to latest post! It's great 'cuz now I don't have to check your blog if you haven't updated it in the last 6 months. :)

It doesn't work for private blogs though...

I'm a dork...

Cancel that last post. I reset my IP address (I do it every few weeks), and now my IP is routing me to Garden City. LOL. So I'm the creep that keeps looking at my blog...

Anyways, it's public for now.

A Little too Close for Comfort

I was checking out my blog patrols that I have set up, and it looks like there has been someone viewing my page from Garden City, ID. That's way too close to where I live, and they've been back multiple times. Garden City also happens to be sex offender heaven. So I'm going private.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Rusty and I put the kids to bed tonight, and then we went snowboarding, played some tennis and boxed. That's right...we got a Wii! I love it! I originally wanted it for the Wii Fit (I've already lost 5 lbs. on it), but the other games are so fun, too. I highly recommend it.

This is Rusty snowboarding. My muscles have been sore since we got it last week.

Although now I'll admit the real reason we got it. You see, we have lived in the Boise area for a few months now. Rusty's sister LaRene has lived here for a much longer time. Whenever family passes through, they stay with her. So we thought if we got a Wii, maybe people would visit us sometime, too. :)

And I thought the carpet was cool

We got grass! And two trees and about 13 ugly little shrubs.

I'm not a fan of the view our neighbor's will have. Can anyone suggest some trees or something?

And He's Off!

This is a two-for-one post, because not only can I show off Austin's new skills, but I also get to show off our new carpet.

I Know the Feeling

Trying to get something done, but the kids just have to be fed.